


i'll lay it all on the line for you

by ciminos



Series: heartbreak weather [3]
Category: Love Victor (TV 2020)
Genre: 1x10, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Rewrite, Episode: s01e10 spring fling, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining victor, and benji is in denial, but it's cute okay, victor just wants a bf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26520715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciminos/pseuds/ciminos
Summary: Benji catches Victor putting the note in his locker in 1x10 which causes Victors entire plan, and himself, to spiral …
Relationships: Benjamin "Benji" Campbell/Victor Salazar
Series: heartbreak weather [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854487
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	i'll lay it all on the line for you

Victor has been having a bad day. From waking up to his parents arguing for the 1000th time to spilling coffee all over his favorite t-shirt at breakfast, his day was already off to a horrible start before school even started. 

Now here he was, marching through the crowded hallway with his letter to Benji clutched tightly between his hands. 

He practically knew everything about Benji, he knew his class schedule, his lunch order, and even his locker combination, so figuring out where he currently was was pretty easy. 

He knew that before class Benji would grab his books from his locker before heading to class a few minutes early so that he could get a seat towards the front of the room because he didn’t want to admit that he needed glasses. 

Victor pulls out his phone and read the time, _7:50_ , meaning that Benji had more than likely already grabbed what he needed and left the vicinity of his locker. 

He turns the corner but immediately jumps back when he notices Benji still standing by his locker, pulling large books out and tucking them under his arm. Victor wants to punch himself in the chest because of how much he likes to look at him. 

He’s wearing his usual black long sleeve that hugs his biceps, as well as dark blue skinny jeans that cling all the way down his long legs. Victor shakes his head to clear his thoughts as he steps behind the nearest locker and peers around the corner. 

He traces Benji’s face and watches as he flicks through his notebook with his eyebrows knitted together. Victor’s eyes move down and fall onto his lips as he notices them slightly moving apart, mouthing the words on the page quietly aloud. 

One of the other many things about Benji that Victor knew was that he was the type of person who would study everyday leading up to a test, unlike himself, who would avoid studying like the plague and end up cramming weeks worth of review into an hour before an exam. So seeing Benji intensely reading his notes just a few minutes before class started was something he’d never seen before. 

During late nights at work Victor and Benji would often help the other study by quizzing them while they were cleaning. During those nights he would watch as Benji would visually try to answer a question that he had asked. He would squeeze his eyes shut and bring his finger up to pinch the bridge of his nose before jumping up and shouting the answer aloud. 

He wonders if the reason that Benji is behind schedule and last-minute studying is because he wasn’t there to help him, but he tells himself he’s just being delusional.

Victor thinks back to those nights and how he should have appreciated them more when he had the chance because now they were gone. Victor had worked late last night but rather than enjoying it and wishing for it to never end, he impatiently waited as the clock slowly counted down. He spent the entire night in silence save for the repetitive music that constantly rang through the speakers of the café and he hated every second of it.

He couldn’t deny that a large part of the reason he loved working there was getting to work beside Benji. They didn’t see each other very often at school due to their conflicting schedules, but working side-by-side for hours on end resulted in them getting very close. Benji was probably the person he was most closest with, behind Felix. 

Victor’s train of thought is interrupted as first bell rings through his ears, signaling that class would start in 5 minutes. His eyes find Benji who had started closing his locker and swung his backpack over his shoulder. 

He waits until Benji had fully turned away and began walking the other direction before he sprints towards Benji’s locker. He pulls the note out of his back pocket where he had tucked it when he first saw him and begins to slip it through the hole at the top of the locker. 

The note is half way through when a familiar voice calls his name and makes him freeze in place,

“Victor?” It was Benji, standing a few feet away from him staring with a perplexed look painted across his face.

“Oh, hey-y-y Benji, what’s up?” Victor speaks awkwardly as he slowly lowers his hands and places them into his jacket pockets.

“I came back because I forgot a pencil, what are _you_ doing?” He tilts his head and looks Victor up and down, making him flush.

“Oh I’m just…chilling out before first period, you know how it is.” Victor laughs nervously as he looks down to hide the growing redness of his cheeks.

“You’re chilling by my locker? Isn’t your first period on the other side of the school?”

“Well y-yeah but..” 

“And what’s that?” Benji extends his arm and points to the piece of paper sticking out of his own locker. 

Part of Victor tells himself to come up with a lie. To tell Benji that it was just a note that Sarah had asked him to pass along, but another part of Victor is tired of lying, tired of hurting the people around him. He sighs and looks back up,

“It’s a note I wrote…for you.”

“Victor I told you we should stay away from eachoth-“ 

Victor cuts him off, “Yeah I get that Benji but _please_ ,” he practically begged, “can you just hear me out.” 

Victor reaches up in order to pull the note back out but he tugs too aggressively which causes it to rip in half. Victor feels his chest pound with regret as he slowly turns to look at Benji, holding half of the torn paper in his hand with guilt painted across his face.

“Okay…um can we talk at lunch? Because that was kind of my only note.” He tries to joke in an attempt to break the awkward tension that was currently suffocating them.

“I don’t know Victor…” Benji’s nose wrinkles and he looks up to the ceiling. He had a habit of wrinkling his nose whenever he was thinking hard about something. That was another one of the many things Victor knew about him. 

The warning bell rings through the nearly empty hallway which quickly pulls Benji out of his thoughts as he moves in front of Victor to get to his locker.

Victor reaches into the side pocket of his own backpack and pulls out a pencil before Benji can protest, 

“Here.” He says as he waves the pencil in front of his face.

Benji grabs it hesitantly and takes a step back, “I really have to go.”

He turns around and begins to walk away until Victor catches his arm, “Wait!”

Benji freezes in place and Victor quickly retracts his hand as if he had been touching hot stones and shoves it back into his pocket, “Will you meet me at lunch so we can talk?”

“Victor I-“

“Please Benji.” Victor pleads. 

“Fine.” Benji says before he begins walking off again. He doesn’t say it in a harsh or rude way but rather defeatedly, like he had tried his hardest to fight the words from coming out.

Victor watches Benji as he reaches his classroom’s door at the end of the hallway and quickly rushes in. The final bell rings signaling the start of class and Victor exhales dramatically. _Great_.

**

Victor had been waiting at the bench by the vending machine for about 10 minutes now. He had tried to text Benji to tell him where exactly he would be but the messages didn’t deliver. He was starting to think that he wasn’t going to show up until he spots him across the courtyard with his eyes darting around.

He looked like a lost puppy and Victor wanted nothing more than to walk up to him and kiss him till his lungs filled up, but he knew he couldn’t. Benji has a boyfriend who he clearly wanted to be with. He chooses to wave him over instead as he swallows down the thoughts.

Once Benji’s eyes find Victors he feels himself go still. Even from far away Benji’s gaze pierces into him like two daggers. He slowly walks over but their eye contact doesn’t break. Victor feels like even if he wanted to look away he couldn’t because the air around him was forcing him to look straight ahead, right into Benji’s perfect hazel eyes.

Victor had looked into those eyes countless times during their late nights at Brasstown. So much so that he could probably point out every speck of green, brown, and amber. He had seen them close tightly when Benji would laugh, seen them narrow in annoyance when Sarah went on one of her many tangents, and see them grow comically large as Victor told him one of his many funny childhood stories. 

Victor’s thoughts are interrupted as Benji takes a seat next to him. His eyes dart down as he becomes increasingly aware of the distance between their two legs. They were probably a little over a foot apart and Victor wanted to scooch closer until their thighs were pressed together. He uses all his strength to hold himself back and tries to focus on anything else.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” Benji speaks to break the silence.

“Okay.. um..” The truth is Victor hadn’t really thought about what he would say if Benji did actually show up at lunch. Even though he had wrote that note and read it over and over again until the words were permanently etched in his brain, he couldn’t find the right words as he felt Benji’s gaze burning into him.

Victor runs his thumb across his knuckles and then traces the inside of his palm. He thinks about everything he wants to say to Benji. He wants to tell him how he’s never liked someone as much as he likes him. He wants to tell him how when he kissed Mia it was nice, but it was nothing in comparison to how it felt when he kissed him. He wants to tell him how a part of him felt like it was missing ever since they stopped talking. 

But, he can’t. So Victor instead chooses to bottle up his feelings like he does with everything else, and tucks them far back into his brain.

“Benji i’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you…I know that… it was-“ Victor pauses. It was a _mistake_ he feels like he should say, except it didn’t feel like a mistake. Kissing Benji felt right. Like their lips were made for each other. Like kissing anyone else would be a sin. 

When he kissed Benji he not only felt it in his lips but through his entire body. He felt his veins flow with passion as they ran from the tips of his fingers and wrapped around his heart.

“It was a bad idea.” He chooses to say instead. 

“Look, Victor. I forgive you,” Benji says slowly. Victor feels his heartbeat rise and his pulse speed up. 

“But..” Victor physically feels his heart rate immediately drop, “that doesn’t change anything…I have a boyfriend, and you kissed me…So I need to stay away from you…I’m sorry.” 

Each word hits Victor like a train and he feels his eyes clamp shut. 

Benji doesn’t say anything else but he also makes no indication of moving. Victor feels like he’s probably waiting for a response, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He had hoped that at the least things could go back to normal. 

He’d hoped that maybe they could forget about the stupid kiss and move passed it. Maybe Benji could come back to work. Maybe they could just be really good friends and his feelings would eventually flame out. 

Benji’s phone vibrates loudly and Victor looks over without moving his head. He watches as Benji sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He watches his face as his eyes dart around the screen as he’s reading it. He notices his face fade from a neutral expression to one filled with annoyance and a hint of anger.

“Look Victor, I have to go, i’m sorry.” He says slowly in a slightly guilty tone, like he doesn’t actually want to leave, but maybe Victor was imagining things. 

Victor finally looks over and meets eyes with Benji. Once again he feels them pierce into him. He feels like Benji is inside of his mind digging around, his gaze deepens and he wonders if he’s searching for something in his own eyes.

Victor attempts to speak but he can’t get any words out. Instead he forcefully nods his head up and down before quickly picking up his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder. He stands up and begins to step away before he freezes in place. 

Maybe it was because he had been having a bad day already or maybe it was because he had bottled up one two many emotions, but before he could stop himself he turns around and speaks loud enough for just Benji to hear him,

“You know what no,” He begins as Benji stares at him quizzically, “I’m tired of pushing my feelings down okay! I like you Benji, I always have. From the second we met I haven’t been able to think about anything else and yeah it’s scary but you know what I don’t care anymore. I get that you’re with Derek and I respect that, but I can’t ignore what I feel for you, and if i’m being honest I think you have feelings for me too!’ 

Victor lets every word spill out of his mouth without thinking them over, he watches Benji’s face change to an unreadable expression. 

He notices his mouth open and shut several times, clearly searching and failing to find the right words. 

Victor feels his thoughts unravel as his head starts to pound. He thinks about how his parents are always constantly arguing, he thinks about how he and Mia may never be friends again after he broke up with her out of the blue, he thinks about how Benji is sitting there staring at him with those stupid eyes that shine in the sun and perfect hair that fell perfectly across the top of his head and moved slightly due to the slight breeze in the air. 

Victor lets go of his gaze on Benji and notices that several people are staring at him with faces full of shock and confusion. 

Victor feels himself panic and quickly turns around and begins quickly walking the other way, he tunes the world around him out and instead focuses on his own breathing. He thinks he hears a voice he knows all too well call out to him, but he ignores it and continues to walk until he’s out of the courtyard and back inside the school. 

***

The bell finally rings at the end of the school day and Victor has never been happier for class to be over. Ever since lunch he could feel the gaze of his classmates fall onto him as he walked in the hall or sat in class and frankly he was tired of it. 

He wished he didn’t have to go to work today but he still needed the money. Luckily he had about an hour before he had to go into work so he spent that hour alone in his car driving around the city just thinking. He thought about his family, about his friends, about Mia, and about Benji. The last taking up the majority of his mind as it always did.

The hour flies by and Victor dreadfully pulls into the Brasstown parking lot. Once he parks he adjusts his rearview mirror so that he can see himself in it and stares. He forcefully places a smile onto his face and fixes his hair before stepping out of the car and entering through the back of the cafe. 

He grabs his apron and notices the empty spot next to it where Benji’s apron used to hang. He feels a ping of sadness but he shakes his head and widens his smile.

** 

Victor’s 5 hour long shift feels so incredibly slow that when it finally finishes he feels like he could collapse right onto the counter top out of exhaustion. 

He thinks about how he was once again having to close up in a stiff and boring silence. He closes his eyes and thinks back to the times where he and Benji would race to see who could clean their side of the cafe first. He thinks about the one time where they blared music loudly through the speakers for so long that they lost track of time.

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, _Okay, I just need to close up and then I can go home and pretend this whole day never happened_ he repeats to himself as he slowly reopens his eyes and begins wiping down the tables. 

After several minutes he hears the bells from the front door ring and Victor shouts over his shoulder without turning around, 

“Sorry we’re closed, please come back tomorrow!” 

He continues to wipe down the table and forgets all about the other person in the room until the same familiar voice he had heard call out to him earlier that day speaks up. “Victor.” 

Victor’s entire body freezes in place. He feels his eyes grow wide as if he had just been caught doing something illegal. He doesn’t dare turn around and instead tries to tell himself he’s hearing things until he hears footsteps grow closer until they stop right in front of him. 

Victor slowly raises his head until his eyes meet the face he could never get tired of seeing. The face he wishes he could spend the rest of his life with. The face he wishes he could kiss until his lips grew numb. 

It was Benji. There he was standing across from him with another unreadable face. The exhaustion he had felt imminently evaporated into thin air and he forces himself to speak after a few seconds,

“Benji? W-what are you doing here?”

Victor looks him over and notices that both of his hands are behind his back as if he’s hiding something behind it. 

Benji notices his gaze on him and his mouth grows into a small smile before he brings his hands forward, revealing a piece of paper and a single red rose. 

Across the top of the paper the words _Will you go to the Spring Fling with me?_ are written in a beautiful cursive. Below the words is a drawing of what Victor assumes is both him and Benji wearing suits and ties. He can tell that Benji had drew it himself because it looked similar to the drawing he had given him on his birthday.

Victor pinches himself on the arm trying to wake himself up from the dream but nothing happens. When he doesn’t say anything Benji decides to speak up instead, 

“After lunch I couldn’t stop thinking about you Victor. I mean I usually can’t stop thinking about you, but this time was different. I realized that you were right,”

Victor watches as Benji speaks, he watches his mouth move up and down and takes in every word he says.

“things have been off with me and Derek for a while and I think I just wanted to believe that we could move past those things because I was scared. But I’ve never felt the same for Derek as I feel for you,” Victor audible gasps. “ever since I met you i couldn’t get you out of my head, and then you and Mia got together and I thought it would be fine,” Benji grimaces and Victor mirrors the expression,

“but I still couldn’t stop thinking about you, and then in Willacoochee when you kissed me, I realized that I couldn’t ignore my feelings anymore.” 

“But then, why did you say we should stay away from each other?” Victor blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Because I was scared I guess, but i’m not anymore Victor. I broke up with Derek right after lunch. He was the one who texted me. I finally realized that I should be with someone who makes me happy and makes me feel good about myself. And I think that person is you.” 

Victor feels like he’s floating. He feels his chest swell with an overwhelming feeling of desire. He feels his mind that normally swarmed with emotion dull into a comfortable silence. 

“You make me happy too.” Victor smiles brightly as he watches Benji walk around the table until he is only a few inches away from him. Part of him can’t believe what’s happening and another part of him can’t believe it took so long to happen.

Their eyes lock and this time when Victor looks into them, he no longer feels daggers piercing into him, but rather two stars that shine under the lights above them. Victor feels like he could drown in them.

He closes the space between them by grabbing Benji by the waist and lightly pulling him closer until their lips meet. In comparison to their kiss in Willacoochee, this kiss is slow and light, yet still filled with the same amount of passion. He feels his heart swell in his chest and his lips begin to tingle.

They finally pull apart and Victor bends down so that their foreheads are lightly pressed against each others. He opens his eyes and notices Benji looking up at him with a soft expression. 

“So does this mean you’ll go to the dance with me?” Benji asks teasingly as he chuckles, causing his body to lightly shake against his own.

“Hmm… well I’ll have to think about it.” Victor teases back. They laugh together until it slowly fades into a comfortable silence. 

They aren’t sure how long they stay like that for. Maybe it was seconds or maybe it was minutes but neither of them made any indication of moving and instead moved closer until their lips connected once again.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoy <3 follow me on twt so we can talk about these two cuties @juiynns


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